Waiting In The Wings -- 7/22/2009

Does this Wednesday bring any new Hawk-related merchandise to the shelves of everyone's LCS?  Let's find out.

Green Lantern #44 -- This issue promises a showdown between three of the founding members of the Justice League, except that one of them is a super-powered space zombie.  Given the events of Blackest Night #1, Hawkman and Hawkgirl could pop up in this issue, but I don't think they will.

Wednesday Comics #3 -- Kyle Baker's Hawkman strip continues this week, along with all of the other Sunday Funnies-inspired strips.  I haven't had much to say about this strip, mostly because we have only gotten two pages of it and it's hard to make much of a critique from seeing only 1/6th of the final product.  But I do have some impressions.  

I am not really sure that Baker is suited to the Hawkman character.  I like his cartoony style, such as on Plastic Man, a lot more than this psuedo-photorealist style he is using for Hawkman.  Everything looks labored over and over-rendered.  To me, photorealism is better when it looks non-chalant.  I point to what Dave Sim is doing over in glamourpuss while teaching himself to draw in the Alex Raymond style.  That doesn't look labored over (even though it sorta kinda is), and certainly not over-rendered.

That having been said Baker showed off in the second page a good sense of dynamic motion, a trait which I have said over and over on this blog is important to depicting the Hawks.  He also has a good voice for the character, who tells a group of skyjackers that they will soon envy their friends who have fallen to their doom.  As I said, it's still too early to pass judgement, but despite my reservations I think this strip will turn out pretty good in the end.